Goodbye, Waterstones, Dawson Street branch

Fifty jobs have just gone in Waterstones, between the Dawson Street and Jervis Street branches, and at the risk of sounding rather E.J. Thribbish, I’d like to mark the passing of the Dawson Street one in particular.

When I were a lass, it was a large Laura Ashley shop which occupied that Dawson Street premises, with a huge and beautiful central staircase and a railed gallery stuffed with bolts of green and white cotton prints and rolls of impossibly smart striped wallpaper (look, it was the early eighties). I’m fairly sure that before Laura Ashley it was the old Dublin furniture firm Anderson, Stanford and Ridgeway – at any rate, in the mid eighties Waterstones opened there, bringing a touch of glamour to Dublin’s bookshop selection, which up to that point had been dominated by Hodges Figgis, Fred Hanna and Easons, and supplemented by a solid lineup of secondhand and antiquarian shops, like Duffy’s, George Webb on the quays, and the dusty wooden stairs of Greene’s where endless Everyman editions of nineteenth century classics rubbed shoulders with geometry sets and rubber dinosaurs.

Waterstones brought a clean, modern shop layout that was unlike anything I knew in the city centre then, its restrained W branding a hymn to the serif typefaces in which its books were set. And despite its being part of a chain (nul points for romance) and a British one at that (just nul points), Waterstones in Dawson Street always felt like a Dublin shop. The staff, an unfailingly civil bunch of low-voiced smilers, knew their books and made their customers feel that their query was an important one. Even today, I heard one of them giving his full and thoughtful attention to an elderly lady about buying a book in French for her fifteen-year-old granddaughter, when with only three days of work left he could have been forgiven for drinking blood cocktails under the stairs.

I had fifty-odd euro saved up on my loyalty card, so I went in today to spend it and say goodbye to the shop, which is trading until Sunday, and when I’d paid for my books, the staff member who completed the transaction for me popped a red-foiled chocolate egg (of creamy, luxurious quality) into the paper bag along with the books.

“Just to say thanks for your loyalty,” she said, on behalf of the chain which had just made her redundant.

Someone had brought in scones from Kehoe’s – that cafe in Trinity Street which sells rock-bun sized scones injected with raspberries – and everyone was to get one when it was their turn for a break. The shelves were as well stocked as ever – apart from the cardboard Jo Nesbo stand – and the usual three-for-two selections were on offer, along with the current BOGOF on children’s picture books. It was easy enough to get my spend up to fifty euro.

Jervis Street was a difficult shop to be in, too many funny angles and a downstairs that was hardly there. But I’ll miss Dawson Street’s Irish history and biography section, their ordinary biography section, the children’s area, the substantial fiction selection, even that unappetising little loo in the most awkward corner of the shop. No, now I’m getting sentimental, I won’t miss that. I was reeled in, as intended, by the staff’s handwritten notes of recommendation, stayed loyal with my card, did a good chunk of my Christmas and birthday shopping there over the last twenty-four years. It was a meeting place, too, in the style of Clery’s clock, but with more to do while you wait. I’ve kissed and been kissed in that tiny lift.

I took it for granted, and from Sunday it won’t be there any more. I hope all the staff members find new jobs soon, and that someone interesting takes over the premises.

I am really, really impressed with how courteous the staff have been this week, after such bad news. I remember when a certain other large Dublin-area bookshop closed and it was a far, far less classy affair.

I agree with everything you’ve written Antonia. The Jervis Street store was not an ideal unit for a bookshop. However, I always thought that the staff recommendations in the Jervis store were better – quirkier. They suited my own tastes better, anyway.

[…] big pot of Saturday morning chai and munching on some overly-wholesome muesli, I came across a post lamenting the impending closure of two of Dublin’s favourite bookshops, namely the Dawson Street and Jervis Street branches of Waterstones. The spaces to the side of […]

My favourite Waterstones moment occurred in the Dawson Street branch in 1997 when I saw a whey-faced boy of about 15 making his way to the till, his excitement barely suppressed, to buy Beckett’s More Pricks than Kicks.
I don’t think they told him it wasn’t what he was after.

I have happy memories too of Waterstones coming to a dull corner of Coventry and becoming a haunt while I was at university in Leeds. It’s a chain that has made a positive difference to a lot of people and managed to keep the personal touch. It’s very sad to hear that it’s going and that the jobs will be lost.

A lovely atmospheric post Antonia. So sad to see Waterstones going down the swanny. Have spent a lot of time there in recent months, browsing and supping green tea in the Reader’s Cafe upstairs. Sickening to think of the job losses involved, yet another layer of retail pain visited on a country in unblurred ruins. Given that so many of our politicians and bankers and developers and scallop-scoffing business men with gold-plated golf clubs had such an appetite for ‘fiction’, you’d think book stores would be kept going no matter what. Annoys me too that big companies are unwilling to ride out the storm, I imagine a number of ‘chains’ will pull out of Ireland in similar fashion over the next few years now that the Celtic Amoeba is firmly in place.

What a beautiful post. I am sitting on the other side of the world in the bright sunshine feeling incredibly sad and nostalgic for something I never saw or experienced myself. The disappearance of anything that brings such gentle pleasure is a terrible shame. I am dreading the day when we won’t even be able to smell books from a horrid global chain store. LED screens just don’t have the scent and the feel. Hmmm. Book buying. A dying treat.

This is a very touching post. Remembering it as I watched the News last night, gave me a lump in my throat. Seeing a beautiful and once vibrant store lying idle is a very sad reminder of the times we are living in.

And God knows there are enough of them around. When my nearest jewellers closed up, the note the owner left in the window to his customers would just break your heart. Thanking everyone for their loyalty and custom, and lamenting the loss of his life’s work, despite doing literally everything. Another coffee shop I used to frequent still has the salt and pepper shakers out on the tables. If you peer through the shutters hard enough you can still make out the specials on the chalk board from their last day’s trading.

So it’s all the more heartening to see some winning the fight. My nearest town had one little book shop for years. The gentleman owner is unfailingly helpful, but never in an obtrusive way. He has always had a bowl of chocolates out at the counter. And gives out €5 vouchers with purchases at Christmas time for January spending. A fairly monster Easons opened directly round the corner about two years ago. It’s possibly the biggest store in the whole town. But the little book shop is still there. The owner says his cutomers have stayed loyal, which is heartening. Long may it continue to survive and thrive.

Thanks everyone – good to hear what positive feeling there is towards Waterstones, and the staff there in particular.

The town of Kells (speaking of books, ho ho) was on the news last night, shops and businesses closed and closing, people angry, frightened, bemused, but I was struck by a local hotelier saying recovery would be local, that it would be neighbourhood pride and loyalty that made people think before they spent. Main Street, Ireland (I’m sure that’s what David McW or someone calls it) has been under enough of a threat lately with superstores and ginormomarkets and out of town retail parks and whatever, so let’s be aware of the possibility of it being throttled completely.

I do so agree, Gina – support your local stores, frequent your local cafe, your local newsagent, your local chemist. It’s hard, when you may be able to get things more cheaply (though at what cost to others?) from your local Tesco or wherever, but we don’t want to live in a country without functional town centres, with every trip out of the front door ending in a multistorey carpark. And if we do shop online, we should be trying to shop on Irish sites – so with books, for example, get them from Kenny’s or Raven Books (plucked at random) instead of Amazon.

The Waterstones decision was part of a bigger plan to close 11 of the chain’s branches across the UK and Ireland, so increased shopping levels in Dawson Street would have had to have been pretty significant to make a difference – but we can make a difference with other businesses.

OK I am sounding preachy now and have repeated the same thing couched in slightly different language about seven times. Time for me to hit Post, and run.

Antonia – did you here the recent news story about Kanturk in Cork. Total of 22 new shops opened in the town. Chamber of Commerce refused a new Tesco as they wouldn’t come into the town, but wanted green field out of town location. There has to be lessons there…

I’m going to miss that Waterstones, despite not living in Dublin. I, too, remember the Laura Ashley and the excitement when Waterstones opened there instead! Finally, a bookshop where you could browse for hours without staff following you around and breathing down your neck and making pointed comments about if you weren’t buying, you could get out (thank you, Easons, you did it to my dad as well as to me).

Every time we came to Dublin, the family knew that we’d meet in Waterstones and Dad and I would have been in there for a couple of hours already.

Staff who were lovely and kind. I was in that shop nearly every day when I was at university.

I had a nosebleed there once. The staff sat me down, produced some bog roll and fended off the numpties who knew better than me how to deal with my recurring problem (one woman tried to grab me and force my head back). I was so embarrassed and they were so kind. Even now, if I look at my bookshelves, I can see so many books I bought from that shop. I can tell you the exact spot on the shelves in Waterstones where I found some of those books.

Jenny, I too can remember exactly where I bought certain books over 20 years ago. When I went into the shop for the final time I found myself looking at the exact shelves where I’d found my copies of The Pursuit of Love and all the other Nancy Mitfords as well as The Diary of a Provincial Lady and The Young Visiters [sic] back in the late ’80s. When I walked out for the last time I patted the door and felt like I was going to burst into tears.

Also, when I was in college friends and I got work there for a day stocktaking. One of my friends and I had to be separated because we were laughing too much at the titles of the ridiculous business books we were meant to be counting. During my last visit, that same friend’s most recent novel was out on display in the recommended section…